Public enterprise reform and organizational commitment : a comparative study on the energy public enterprises in Thailand

Abstract

The energy sector exits within an increasingly competitive and regulated environment. These challenges are placing energy public enterprises under stress and are requiring these organizations to align themselves with new initiatives, including adjustments to both effectiveness and organizational commitment. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of public enterprise reform policy on the attributes of organizational commitments in the public energy enterprises in Thailand. It compares three structural types of public energy enterprises: totally state-owned public enterprises, partially transformed public enterprises, and totally transformed public enterprises, based on the degree of state ownership and the level of management control that exits in the public reformed organizations, by analyzing the presence of the desirable attributes of organizational commitment as perceived by employees. It also examines the causal relationship between organizational commitment and three categories of antecedents, change-related behaviors, human resources management practices, and work-related values, by using structural equation modeling (SEM). The data for this study were drawn from two major sources - through in-depth interviews with executives and a questionnaire eliciting the perceptions of the employees of public energy enterprises. Of 589 usable questionnaires (representing a 65.44% response rate), 32.94% came from employees of totally state-owned enterprises, 34.63% came from employees of partially transformed enterprises, and 32.43% from employees of totally transformed enterprises. Findings indicate that there are statistically significant differences in the level of some dimensions of organizational commitment (affective commitment and normative commitment) between the three types of public energy enterprises. The lack of a structural type difference holds for only continuance commitment. Moreover, the employees perceived some organizational change-related behaviors, HRM practices, and work-related values at different levels in the public energy enterprises. The results also indicated empirical evidence concerning the causal relationship between these antecedents and organizational commitment. On the other hand, change-related behaviors showed a direct negative influence on organizational commitment, and both HRM practices and work-related values indicated a direct positive influence on them. The study recommends a concrete effort by policy makers and management in order to improve the public enterprise’s environment in order to enhance its role in development by emphasizing private management practices and by reducing changerelated behaviors through encouraging performance-oriented and market-oriented approaches. In these recommendations, organizational and HRM policies are introduced to make these public enterprises more productive and attractive for public reform.